No
by obsessivelyfanaticgw09
Summary: The Doctor is lonely, depressed, and bitter, but when River comes in to offer some comfort…he simply answers, "No…" One-shot?


**Kinda interested in what people think of this! Just wondering if it's worth continuing!**

**This takes place…well I'm not really sure yet. Somewhere after the series 7 finale…And Clara is nowhere to be found. You can make up your own conclusion about that one.**

**It's different from anything else I've ever written…but, here goes nothing.**

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His eyes still burned and his chest still hurt. He had just dropped her off and well…he had been sitting in a sobbing mess in a corner of the blue-grey TARDIS for hours it's seemed. He was free to cry when River wasn't looking. Free to let the tears fall when she was gone and she would never know that this was their last trip and he had basically dropped her off at her death.

The towers were beautiful and they had sung and it was marvelous. And she had kissed him in his top-hat and his new hair-cut. And she had tasted his tears as they fell in-between their lips.

She had asked what was wrong. But he shook it off and kissed her harder, loving the way their lips fit together so perfectly, feeling the bliss calm his aching chest.

He always knew this moment would come.

That was their last night together. Their last date. Their last kiss. Their last…everything.

And that hurt the Doctor – stabbed into his hearts like nothing ever before. Because he had finally found someone – someone to fill that gaping hole, someone who was like him, and he vowed not to hurt her like he had hurt all the others.

But that phase was over now, the curtain crashed to the floor, the final bows taken.

They had matched up diaries before heading to the Derrilium, and everything was accounted for. Jim the fish, the Pandorica, the Byzantium, Manhattan, when they married, when they kissed, when he told her his name. It all matched up. Nothing was left undone in her diary. Nothing was left undone is his. (Besides that Library, which he purposely left out). All ends were tied.

It was their last.

And that angered him. Heaven forbid that he have even one who he can hold onto for more than a second in relation to his long, lonely life. Too long. Way too long.

As he clawed his fingernails deep into his scull for the hundredth time, he suddenly realized something.

_Time isn't the boss of you._

It shouldn't be the boss of you. You can see the birth and the death of a planet in a matter of minutes. Time. Is not. The boss of you.

Rushing to the console, barely feeling his feet touch the floor, he flicked and pushed and turned rather harshly until the circles above him spun and turned and the machine hurdled through the vortex. He didn't care. He didn't care about tied up ends and last kisses and tears. He didn't care. He just wanted to see her. He didn't care how old she was, where they were, he just wanted to hold her, to have her.

He wanted her. He needed his wife. He was alone and angry. She would ground him.

He needed her, and time isn't the boss of you.

_You are the Time Lord Victorious. _

He shook the bitter memory from his head – no – this was different.

The TARDIS landed on a date he wasn't sure of. He didn't care. He knew it was the right cell.

Sure enough, as soon as she was completely materialized, the TARDIS blue doors swung open.

"Thank God it's you." River rushed in, her ringlets bouncing in time with the Doctor's racing hearts. She saw the tears on his cheeks and didn't question it. "I've had myself a rough night too."

They rushed into each other's arms, as if they both had awaited this moment. Like they both had been a little too lonely and a little too sad for a little too long. And they simply craved each other. The Doctor knew his faithful TARDIS would take him to just the right moment.

After a smiling hug that was like too best friends meeting face to face for the first time, they broke apart and were mutually agreed that this was the happiest either of them had been in a very long time.

River slowly placed her hands on her Doctor's sharp cheek-bone and kissed him softly on the lips. He received it and built the intensity. He was hungry for her.

Not hardly caring why or about anything else, he continued to kiss her. It was something he hasn't felt in a long time – the fire between the two. She knocked him backwards, his feet shuffling awkwardly one behind the other (cause this man had never truly mastered the art of being graceful) until he was leaning up against the console.

She was the first to slide off his suspenders and untuck his shirt. They were heavy breathing now, uncontrollable ecstasy.

And time was trying to tell him he couldn't have this anymore. Trying to deny him what he unquestionably deserved.

"So…" he couldn't help it. He couldn't make a moment like this completely romantic if he tried. He couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Where are we?" he choked between breaths and kisses.

"Um." She somehow managed to hold back for a moment and rest her forehead on his. " 'bout a month ago you took me to Towerinvicta with the 'more stars in the sky then at any other moment in the history of the universe.'" She talked fast before kissing him again.

Her fingers had begun to muddle with the buttons of his waistcoat when he stopped and turned his head. "What is it Sweetie? Should we move to the bedroom where it's a little more…comfortable?"

The Doctor shook his head and refused to receive any more of the kisses River was begging for.

"No…"

Suddenly he took a few more steps to the left and pulled back up his suspenders.

"What?" River asked, pulling her eyes-brows together. "What's wrong?" he didn't answer, his eyes fallen to the floor and frozen in thought. She grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles. "Doctor you can tell me."

"It's too early."

She set his hand back down by his side, "Surely you don't mean too early in the day? You mean too…" River took a moment to look around. She hadn't even really noticed having been blinded by the light of seeing her love again…that she was in a completely different TARDIS from last month. A completely different desk top theme. He didn't just change those willy-nilly. And her Doctor. He had a new outfit even, waistcoat under his suspenders, a dark purple tweed hanging on the coat rack. Something had happened. Something had changed. And River was further out of their time-line then she has ever been before.

And the Doctor had sensed that now. He understood. This River was young…_so _young. Just imprisoned. Even newly acquainted with the words, "Spoilers" and "Sweetie" and just received that little blue book. He couldn't want her. He couldn't have her. Not yet.

He was reminded of something from long ago. Shortly after the couple had been "married". It was a night after Amy and Rory had gone to sleep and the newlyweds were just walking, holding hands, strolling through the TARDIS like it was Central Park on the nicest day of the year. They talked about things. Deep and meaningful things. The kind of things you expect a couple to know about each other. It was perfect. The Doctor hadn't gotten to know anyone like this for a long time. He had become friends with plenty of companions. But not like River. Cause River has and always will be _more. _Special. Worth it.

And when he found out that in her timeline they hadn't…done anything yet.

And when she found out that in _his_ timeline they hadn't…done anything yet…

It was perfect. The tour ended in the Doctors room, a special surprise as she had never even seen it before. And it was astonishing. Exceptional. Like nothing either of them could have ever asked for. Like the Doctor thought he'd never have again. Like River never thought she'd deserve.

And the Doctor was wise. If something happened tonight, River wouldn't have that moment of perfect delight. He would always have that strange alternate timeline memory that never really makes much sense, but his wife would never get to have that special moment.

And there were other…circumstances too.

The Doctor knew this couldn't happen.

Suddenly, the Doctor had a new memory of just earlier today – he had gotten into his own past, his own mind and changed it. River had said, closing her old and worn book, _"So all caught up then! Except for that time you picked me up and dropped me off for nothing…but we've never really known about that one…it was so long ago." _He had shrugged and said nothing more about it.

And so it was spoken and so it had to be.

He didn't do anything. He waved for her to go. He was too upset. Too exhausted from himself. Too angry at time for proving right yet again.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

The Doctor stared at her with a confused gleam in his gaze. What?

River had eyes. River could see the tension in his shoulders. She could read the signs. She could even pick up a little telepathic stuff from her Time Lord half. "To know that you'll never see me again?"

He didn't know what else to do. He flipped a lever and the doors swung open. Despite the fact that he wanted so badly…_more than anything more in the entire universe, anything he's ever seen or done…_to simply touch her.

"Leave River." The Doctor stomped up the stairs to get lost in the TARDIS and hopefully simply…forget.

He was stopped by a voice in the hallway. She had listened and waited for the TARDIS doors to creak shut.

"Dad?" from behind the Doctor as he stormed down the hall.

He spun around on his heel, his face still downcast and distraught.

"What's wrong? I thought you were out? I was sleeping."

He stared at the young girl. "Sorry Indigo. Go back to bed."

"I heard voices."

He was turned back toward the end of the hall, purpose in his steps. "It was no one," he mumbled flatly.

"It sounded like Mum."

The Time Lord stopped in his tracks. As if he didn't already hurt from having to keep his daughter hidden…he couldn't even tell her when a younger version of her mother came along.

He took a few steps toward her bedroom door with his hands in his pockets. She looked so much like River.

"Was Mum here?"

"Yeah. Too young to know about you yet, I'm afraid."

"Oh."

Heaviness hung in the air.

"I saw two of her tonight." He couldn't help being honest with her.

"Huh?"

"I saw the younger one that just left, and an older one…a really old one."

Tears gathered in his eyes again. He hung his head low. How dare he? How dare he not be strong even in front of his daughter?

Indigo leaned against the threshold and struggled to see her father's moist gaze. Much to his dismay, she could read him even better than her mother could.

"We're never gonna see her again." It wasn't a question. She knew.

Indigo reached up and wrapped her arms around her dad's racking shoulders. Slowly his knees gave out and she followed him to the ground where they both sat for a long long time, crying and holding each other.

The Doctor found himself proud that time was the boss of him. Happy that he had kicked River out tonight, her so confused and bewildered and him still wanting to touch her. Cause if something – even one little thing - had gone wrong before River and the Doctor's perfect night. If one piece was changed or altered, this little girl wouldn't be holding him now. And the Doctor would truly always be alone.

But he wasn't.

He had her.

And they'd get through this together.

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**Well...I'm willing to explore it if you guys are!**


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